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Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Conservative MP interviewed under caution over election spending

The Guardian reports that Craig Mackinlay, the Conservative MP who defeated Nigel Farage in Thanet South in 2015, was interviewed under caution for six hours by the police today.

It was the part of the inquiry into whether the party overspent in the constituency at the last general election.

The report goes on to quote an email from Karl McCartney, another Tory MP under investigation, who is helping his similarly place colleagues.

In that email ("seen by Sky News") McCartney writes that his colleagues:

“feel completely cast adrift by CCHQ/whips/the parliamentary party and left to fend for themselves”.

He added: “At what stage do you think you [the party] might inform us that another media s***storm is coming? We didn’t create this mess, the clever dicks at CCHQ did, and I don’t see their professional reputations being trashed in the media much.”

“The initial cock-ups, ‘strategy’ and ineptitude with regard to this issue that has so negatively impacted our: lives, standing in our communities, standing amongst colleagues, families and our regard for particular parts of the party centrally, and were all of CCHQ’s making … need to stop.

“We are the ones who are now [and since the beginning as individuals have been] in the media spotlight and it might have been a little more reassuring and collegiate if the powers that be in our party perhaps tried to be a little bit more supportive and less interested in covering their own backsides.”

A Conservative source said the party did not hold a copy of the Electoral Commission report as McCartney alleged.